Supporters of a lower, narrower bridge across the St. Croix River said Wednesday that their bridge would cost about $300 million less than the one being considered by Congress.

A group called the Sensible Stillwater Bridge Partnership said a new engineering report shows that their bridge would cost about $394 million. The St. Croix River Crossing proposed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and supported by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., is expected to cost $574 million to $690 million.

“We live in a fiscally constrained world,” said Jim Erkel, an attorney with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a member of the partnership. “There are lots of other priorities these funds could be spent on, and it would be imprudent to continue running down the path of the Bachmann-Klobuchar bridge when we could be spending the funds on high-priority projects that would benefit many, many more residents of Minnesota.”

The new figure drew immediate fire from the Coalition for the St. Croix River Crossing. “Analysis by the Minnesota Department of Transportation proves that their alternative has major disqualifying flaws, could take as many as 10 years to develop, and is not guaranteed to be workable or legal,” according to a news release from the coalition.

The Sensible Stillwater Bridge Partnership revealed its plan in July, saying it would cost only $283 million. MnDOT officials countered in September that it would cost about the same as the bigger bridge because of delays and underreported costs.

That led officials with the partnership – which consists of a number of organizations, including the MCEA, Transit for Livable Communities, the Sierra Club and the St. Croix River Association – to commission their own study. Erkel declined to say how much the group spent on the study.

The $111 million increase in their cost estimate reflects several changes near the Minnesota approach to the bridge.

The partnership’s proposal is a three-lane bridge that would cross the river diagonally from near the Oasis Cafe, just south of downtown Stillwater, to where the Stillwater Lift Bridge hits the bluff on the Wisconsin side of the river. The center lane of three would vary in direction depending on the time of day.

A traffic study – also commissioned by the partnership – shows that the smaller bridge would be able to accommodate 43,000 vehicles a day in 2030, about 5,000 fewer vehicles than MnDOT’s plan, Erkel said.

But, he added, MnDOT’s traffic numbers are based on projections that were made before 2005, “when the housing market was just starting to decline. We recommend that they re-run the numbers. Given the trends, we would probably be within capacity.”

The report comes as momentum builds for the St. Croix River Crossing, a four-lane extension of Minnesota 36.

The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing this morning to mark up a bill sponsored by Klobuchar that would allow construction of the bridge. A companion bill in the House authored by Bachmann has passed through mark-up and is awaiting action by the full House. Both bills seek a federal exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

On Wednesday, 30 state legislators from Minnesota and Wisconsin distributed a letter that had been sent to their congressional delegations urging them to vote against the bills.

The legislators – 23 from Minnesota and seven from Wisconsin – said in the letter that the proposed bridge is too expensive and the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, said in a prepared statement that taxpayers would “not be well served by a $700 million bridge that diverts already limited resources for critical bridge repairs and road safety projects.”

Wisconsin Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison, said his constituents and Wisconsin taxpayers “are more concerned about repairing the bridges in their neighborhood rather than building a gold-plated bridge to Minnesota six miles north of an eight-lane bridge that already exists.”

Hulsey was referring to the Interstate 94 bridge that crosses the St. Croix between Afton and Hudson.

But Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, pointed out that Hulsey lives far from the St. Croix River Valley.

“It is important to note that most of those Wisconsin legislators signing the letter represent districts hundreds of miles from western Wisconsin,” she wrote in a statement. “Those of us that have long supported a new bridge have worked to build support with stakeholders and elected officials at all levels of government and from both parties. Now, with positive action being taken to move a new bridge forward in the U.S. Congress, a few legislators…are seeking to further stall or delay this vital project.”

Mary Divine is a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She covers Washington County and the St. Croix River Valley, but has also spent time covering the state Capitol. She has won numerous journalism awards, including the Premack Award and the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists' Page One Award. Prior to joining the Pioneer Press in 1998, she worked for the Rochester, Minn., Post-Bulletin and at the St. Joseph, Mo., News-Press. Her work has also appeared in a number of magazines, including Mpls/St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Business Monthly and Minnesota Magazine. She is a graduate of Carleton College and lives in St. Paul with her husband, Greg Myers, and their three children, Henry, 16, Frances, 14, and Fred, 11.

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